


words are always getting stuck

by Teramina



Series: they lose themselves behind the tears [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (still if you like reading about lucretia this a fic for you), (there will be more involved scenes later in this series but this one kinda needs to start it), Gen, thats pretty much it, there is lucretia angst and descriptions of things happening, voidfish aftermath one shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 01:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13893783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teramina/pseuds/Teramina
Summary: Lucretia had always been a chronicler. From the days of her childhood, writing details in her diary with the accuracy of an eidetic memory, to her career as writer, and later, with the IPRE, she'd excelled at memorising the events around her, and recording them in a way that was both accurate and compelling.It's the ability that allowed her to make this choice. The ability that meant the events after will never be erased from her mind. She wished she was less good at remembering, sometimes.





	words are always getting stuck

**Author's Note:**

> to continue with my tradition of naming fics after AlicebanD lyrics, this one (and the series title) are both from _Worms_
> 
> this was gonna be one long fic but i've already got one of those going and i dont wanna do two at once so i'm making this a series so i can upload the sections in whatever order i finish them
> 
> so yeah, enjoy!

Lucretia had always been a chronicler. From the days of her childhood, writing details in her diary with the accuracy of an eidetic memory, to her career as writer, and later, with the IPRE, she'd excelled at memorising the events around her, and recording them in a way that was both accurate and compelling.

It's the ability that allowed her to make this choice. The ability that meant the events after will never be erased from her mind. She wished she was less good at remembering, sometimes.

The scene went like this: Lucretia, clutching her knees to her chest, her back up against the wall of Fisher's tank. Magnus, passed out on the floor in front of her. Fisher, slowly eating through her journal, the lights of its bell the only illumination in the cabin.

It was a while before she moved. When she did, it was to make sure Magnus was okay. He didn't seem hurt, just unconscious, but it was hard to tell straight away. She'd done as much research as she could, but there was really no way to know for sure what erasing this much of someone's memory could do to you. If his mind would ever be the same again. Somehow, she'd have to figure out how to keep an eye on him. On all of them.

Lying where he dropped it is a small wooden duck. Lucretia had been too preoccupied to notice before, but he must have come in here to give it to her. Most of Magnus' ducks were gifts for Fisher, but this one was cleary hers - it had been painted to resemble her exactly.

She clutched it to her chest for a moment, trying to control her shaky breathing. She could do this. She'd done it before, in that hellish cycle where the rest of them had died. The way forward was simple: focus on the mission, don't die, hope your friends will still be there when you're done. Unfortunately, simple didn't always mean easy.

Not letting go of the duck, she stood up. First step to getting yourself together, Lucretia: stop wallowing in the anxiety. Breathe. Calm down. Move on.

She waved her wand at the overhead lights and they blinked on. The warm light in the room made the situation moderately less terrifying. At the very least, it felt familiar, even if what she was about to do had never been done before.

Everything that needed to be done had a logical sequence of events about how to do it. Once she figured this one out, it would just be a matter of following the plan.

Step one: Check everyone else is okay. They should be in the same state as Magnus, but she had to make sure. If anyone was hurt - or awake, immune somehow, she would have to rework her ideas for how to proceed.

Sure enough though, when she entered the main living space, Merle and Davenport were also unconscious at the table, a pack of cards scattered between them.

It was weird, seeing them like this. Despite the fact that they were all over a hundred at this point, despite the fact that no one had made it through this without their moments of vulnerability, Merle and Davenport were, in many ways, the parents of the group. Seeing them so helpless just didn't feel right. It was just another reminder that Lucretia was the one in charge now. Not because she wanted to be, but because she had to be. There wasn't any other way.

She stepped out onto the deck. Barry had dragged a desk out there days ago, where he was keeping all of his research. The map that he and Taako had put together was still in the middle of it, surrounded by location markers, notes on theories, and multiple empty coffee mugs. Taako was on the floor near the edge of the deck, unconscious. His KrEbStAr was laying abandoned several feet away, where Taako had presumably dropped it. Why he had been holding it at all, and why it was no longer in his hand, she wasn't sure, but she picked it up anyway, to put with her own focus for safekeeping.

There was still one essential thing missing though - Barry was nowhere to be found. And, when she inspected it closer, she realised the railing was bloodied, as well as the floor beneath it.

For a moment, Lucretia didn't know what to do. When she'd planned this all out, she hadn't counted on Barry being missing, a potentially very dangerous loose end if he couldn't be found.

If he was still alive, and had left to go find Lup, then he was lost somewhere, wandering with no memory. If he was dead (far more likely given the evidence, though how it happened, she didn't know), then she had a lich on her hands, immune to Fisher's influence, and who would likely be less than pleased at her actions. Neither outcome beared thinking about.

She remained frozen for a moment, then took a slow breath, focusing on the things she still had control over. Namely, the elf passed out on the ground.

These next few years wouldn't be easy for him, no matter what happened. It was some small mercy that he wouldn't remember Lup, at least then he wouldn't be aware of the huge hole her absence had ripped in his life. Whoever he'd be now, it had to be better than the ghost of an elf they'd been living with the past few weeks. Had to be. But until Lucretia could gather all the relics, he'd be alone, in a world with no resets, for quite possibly the first time ever. There was no winning in this situation. Not until Lup could be found.

Burning a lot of spell slots on levitation, she moved all the beds out into the common area, and collected everyone there, making sure they were all comfortable while she waited for them to wake up. It would be easier to check on them this way in case something went wrong, rather than leaving them in their individual cabins.

Besides, once she'd collected all the personal belongings they'd need from them, she wasn't sure she ever wanted to go in any of her friends' cabins again. It felt, wrong, somehow, now. Whatever they were, whatever they used to be, was over, she became a stranger to them as soon as she wiped herself from their memories, it wasn't her place to be in there. Her decision was necessary, she knew that, but her family... her family was gone. 

* * *

Step two: Find everyone a new life. For the most part, she'd thought this through beforehand. While working on erasing her journal, she'd realised that her friends couldn't just be put out into the world on their own - with so many missing memories they wouldn't know where to begin, and that could get them lost or hurt. Some were easier than others, though, and her plans still weren't airtight. She just hoped she could figure it out before they woke up.

While she thought, she cleaned. Picked up all the dropped playing cards, sorted them, and put them back in their box.  Organised all the clothing lying about, worked out what belonged to who, and if they could take it with them, or if it would have to stay behind in order to preserve their fabricated new lives. Magnus could keep his crafting tools, though she hoped he wouldn't question where he learned how to carve - that memory no longer existed. Basic wands were innocuous enough to keep, but any objects they'd made through artificing would be hard to explain. She'd keep them safe anyway though, just in case. Merle could keep his holy symbol, Davenport could keep his spellbook, but Taako would have to go without, because Lup's influence was impossible to erase. While they'd expanded over the years to no longer sharing a single spellbook, they still borrowed each other's all the time, adding notes, correcting mistakes, sometimes just doodling or leaving reminders for the other. Lucretia made a note to buy Taako a new book on transmutation, so he'd have something, but this one had to stay behind.

Once she finished with the personal belongings, she sorted through the rest, packing everyone bags with food, water, blankets. They didn't have a lot of money yet on this world, but she divided what they did have between them. She'd find a way to make her own income soon enough, and if she couldn't, well, visiting 100 different planes meant they'd collected a shit ton of weird rare and magical objects that could probably fetch a high price on this world.

Cleaning the kitchen was possibly the hardest, because, for the most part, the kitchen never needed cleaning. Taako and Lup made sure to keep the place spotless. Not because either of them were particularly tidy people, but because they took pride in being good chefs, and good chefs had a clean workspace. But since Lup's disappearance, Taako only took the time to eat when he absolutely had to, and only ate the bare minimum of whatever there was lying around. He didn't bother to put effort into the food itself, and he certainly didn't waste any extra energy on cleaning up after himself - every available moment had been spent searching.

And now he couldn't do that anymore. She'd taken that away. But it had to be better in the long run, the search had been slowly killing both him and Barry, the longer they went without Lup. And she'd made sure to collect all of their research - this, at least, she planned to continue. She might be the only one left who remembered Lup, but that just meant she couldn't fail in her task. Lup was family, and Lucretia wasn't about to leave her behind.

The work kept her busy, kept her from worrying too much over all the things that could go wrong. Her plan was detailed, but it wasn't foolproof, and she knew from experience now that no matter how good your plan was, you couldn't account for everything. And, in some way, it helped. If the place was clean, she could pretend it was just any old ship, and not the only home she'd had for over a century. It became more cold and clinical, more like it was when she first saw it. Less well loved, and less well lived in. Fewer reminders of the family she no longer had.

And then, it was just a matter of waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> god, dreams of fame has completely shifted my perspective on how long a one shot should be
> 
> like 1.8k is decent length, but i've gotten too used to writing 4k chapters my brain's just like .....where's the rest of it.... XD


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